Techo Rama

The single and the most important virtual machine performance tip is that you should run the virtual OS on a separate disk than the regular OS. This not only saves some space on your primary hard disk but also increases the performance of both the OS. I, know that you cannot attach an additional hard drive to your Laptop but there are some external SATA drives that offer better speed than the internal hard drive. The external USB 2.0 HDD runs at 7,200 rpm whereas, the normal internal hard disk has a speed of just 4,200 rpm. Although it is possible to squeeze a complete install of Windows XP into a 641MB VM hard drive but that image rapidly grows to about 5-10GB in size and that has a great effect on the performance of the virtual machine. For the laptop purpose we have a external SATA and USB2.0 enclosure that have an interface for a full-speed eSATA connection for desktops. The Icy Dock is one of the examples. It includes a USB 2.0 cable and an eSATA bracket and a eSATA cable. Check out the comparison between a modern 250GB 7,200 rpm SATA drive which is connected via a USB interface and a conventional 100GB 5,400 rpm internal hard disk.